Conditions for doing business in rural areas: Survey evidence from in-movers and stayers
Aldén, L., Hammarstedt, M., & Skedinger, P.Publication year
2026
Published in
Journal of Rural Studies, 122,
Abstract
This paper examines business conditions in rural Sweden, with a focus on differences between entrepreneurs who grew up in rural areas (“stayers”) and those who moved there as adults (“in-movers”). The analysis combines a large-scale survey with administrative register data for business owners aged 25–55 running firms with up to ten employees. Results show that entrepreneurs in rural municipalities place greater weight on both enabling and constraining factors than entrepreneurs in non-rural areas, consistent with a thinner institutional environment. Within rural areas, stayers emphasize locally embedded conditions such as municipal responsiveness and access to local services, while in-movers highlight transport and communication infrastructure and show stronger orientation toward external markets. Regression analyses indicate that these differences are largely explained by group composition: in-movers are, on average, more highly educated, more often women, and more concentrated in skill-intensive service sectors, whereas stayers are more concentrated in agriculture and other place-dependent industries. The findings suggest that policy should combine stronger local institutions and services with investments in transport and digital infrastructure to support diverse forms of rural entrepreneurship.